Senior IS Architect

BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina•Columbia, SC

About The Position

BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina is a long-standing and prominent insurance company in South Carolina, with over seven decades of history. It is the largest insurance company in the state, a leading administrator of government contracts, and operates a sophisticated data processing center. The company has a diverse family of subsidiary companies and is dedicated to delivering outstanding customer service. It holds an A.M. Best rating of A+ (Superior). The company also strongly supports veterans, recognizing their dedication and skills, and offers pay differential coverage for full-time employees in the National Guard or Reserves called to active duty. The position of Senior IS Architect involves providing technical expertise on decisions and priorities regarding the enterprise’s overall systems architecture, ensuring business requirements are met using approved architecture concepts. This role provides consultative services to high-level clients for their applications, offers oversight to project teams to address technical risks and opportunities, and works closely with senior application development staff to ensure products meet analysis, design, and development standards. The architect will collaborate with Enterprise Architecture to set architectural direction for assigned applications, ensure application owners understand operating environments for system integrity, and review systems for potential improvements, presenting recommendations to the Architecture group and IS Senior Management.

Requirements

Bachelor's in a job-related field Or an additional 4 years job related work experience Or an Associate's and an additional 2 years job related work experience
9 years of IT experience.
Possesses a track record of successfully managing joint IS/Business teams through strategic challenges in meeting business objectives.
Excellent negotiation and decision-making skills.
Demonstrated ability to develop and release quality products on time.
Demonstrated ability to build network and collaborative relationships throughout complex organizations.
Understands and applies the attributes and processes of current application or system development methodologies.
Excellent verbal and written communication skills, including the ability to communicate technical approaches to all levels of non-technical and technical staff, management, and end-users.
Able to lead dynamic, energized, and highly creative multidisciplinary work teams in a matrix environment to respond to company business needs.
Has thorough knowledge and understanding of the technologies, architecture, and practices and direction of the application areas.
Able to acquire knowledge of the company’s business practices and direction.

Nice To Haves

Prior BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina experience with AI, AWS, DataLake, and Web UI development.

Responsibilities

In coordination with Enterprise Architecture, establish application architecture direction for change sheets and project efforts, Research and Development (R&D) efforts and RFS efforts based upon the approved architecture.
Ensure business objectives are met using approved architecture principles.
Review and design system software and hardware builds analyzing system options, risks, cost vs. benefit, and impact on the enterprise business process and goals.
Provide architectural guidance on assigned efforts.
Serve as a leader in the integration of solutions and construction of applications.
Reviews and authorizes the integration of application solutions for complex projects within a business unit.
Provide technical oversight on complex projects for a wide range of business initiatives.
Ensure the final product is properly integrated into the technical architecture.
Provide application architecture research for assigned R&D and assigned vendor alerts to include documenting the findings in whitepapers.
Evaluate software packages and make recommendations to IT management.
In coordination with Project Leads, provide input on all proposals that could potentially impact systems.
Serve as a key decision maker and escalation point for approving architectural decisions within the scope of assigned applications.
Serve as an expert resource to IT groups in planning the resource requirements for systems under development.
Develop and document the framework for integration and implementation for changes to technical standards.
Mentor others to ensure technical skills are in place to meet current and future technical leadership-related resource requirements.
Facilitate the establishment and implementation of standards and guidelines that provide direction for the design of technology solutions, including architecting and implementing solutions requiring integration of multiple platforms, operating systems, and applications across the enterprise.
Build relationships with development teams in coordination with design personnel to ensure architecturally sound solutions.
Conveys the impact of strategic technical decisions to application owners, key design team members, and project team members.
Ensures they have a clear understanding of Corporate direction in relation to architecture and technology and ensure integration of that direction as appropriate.
Build and maintain relationships that can be leveraged to support the achievement of business and technical objectives.
Build customer relationships to ensure solutions are leveraged to meet customer's business requirements.
Review customer requests, security patches, and audit requirements for additions or changes to systems, and evaluate feasibility to determine if/how to handle the request while maintaining an adequate/appropriate overall systems infrastructure.
Support RFP and marketing efforts by serving as a subject matter expert for the set of assigned applications.
Answers RFI’s and certify RFS estimates for assigned applications.